Bad Signs
by phoenixfire53
Summary: Speke is fighting a war he never thought he'd live to see.


**AUTHOR'S NOTE:** Okay. I was _pissed_ when they axed off Captain Speke in World War Z. Besides the fact that five measly minutes of screen time is a travesty for a guy like James Badge Dale (come _ON_ you guys), they could've done SO much more with his character. That man deserves a better plotline than the one he got.

Ergo, here I am, playing fanfiction God and giving him the plot line he deserves, which involves (surprise, surprise) pairing him up with everyone's favorite BAMF Israeli soldier, because let's face it, those two would've – and damn it all they should've – teamed up in the movie and kicked some Zeke ass. Results would've been epic. x)

Anyway, moving on to what's important!

 **TITLE:** Bad Signs

 **SUMMARY:** Speke is fighting a war he never thought he'd live to see.

 **PAIRING:** Speke/Segen. Ship it, yo.

 **RATING:** M for language and intense content. Interpret as you will.

 **DISCLAIMER:** I own only the character Jenny, and anything else you don't recall seeing or happening in World War Z. Everything else belongs solely to Paramount and Plan B Entertainment, and absolutely no copyright infringement is intended in this work of fiction.

* * *

The squeaking and groaning of the bicycles gliding down the alleys was loud enough to wake the dead. It _should've_ been loud enough to wake the dead, or so Captain Speke thought. It sure as hell would've woken _him_ up, and he was a damn heavy sleeper most of the time. How the stupid things were managing to go undetected by the Zekes was beyond him…

Frankly, Speke was having a hell of a time figuring out why the bikes hadn't fallen to pieces yet. They'd been sitting un-oiled in a storage hangar for so long, it was a wonder they were all still in one piece when he and the others found them. Speke had a feeling that it wouldn't take long for the bikes to fall apart on him and everyone else; given how grimy and rusty they were in the first place, it seemed pretty likely.

Still, for the moment, they were actually holding up pretty well. If only they didn't make so much goddamn noise…

It was pitch black, very late – sometime around midnight, probably. Rain – the only thing louder than the squeaking, thank God – was coming down in heavy torrents, soaking through everyone's gear within two minutes of being outside. Fat droplets the size of pebbles rolled down the bill of Speke's backwards black baseball cap and splashed on his jacket collar, which then rolled further down and splashed against the back of his neck. The sensation of cool water on warm, dry skin made Speke twitch every time it happened, and each time it did, he was happy the conditions made it hard to see shit. The last thing he wanted was for one of his boys to see his head jerk and to think he'd somehow turned Zeke on them. Yeah, thank God no one could see anything.

They left the alleys behind when they gave way to barbwire-lined streets. Speke swallowed noiselessly. There were bound to be more Zekes nearby now, just waiting for the chance to jump them. One small noise, one screw-up – that would be all it took to submarine this whole thing and then everyone would _really_ be fucked…

 _Bullshit_ , Speke's inner voice muttered with a snort. _Not on my watch. Like hell._

He heard a soft buzz in his ear, then an equally soft garble from his headset. " _Alpha in position_. _Bravo movin' out._ " Speke only nodded. So far, so good.

The garbling stopped, and Speke tuned out, tuned in again on the lack of noise surrounding him – until he heard the guy behind him, the reason he was even creeping around in the rain in the first place, chuffing and panting and grinding along on his bike, and he had to bite back a snort. Christ, for some hotshot U.N. investigator who looked as fit as he did, he sure didn't sound like it now. Poor bastard was probably out of practice with this shit – _really_ out of practice.

Still, it probably wouldn't have killed the asshole to tone the noise down some – and by some Speke meant completely.

He tapped a gloved finger to the mouthpiece of his headset. "Now remember," he started in a murmur, "these things are drawn to sound, so I need you close to target before I bring you the truck. Now, there's only one way we're getting you on that plane, and that's _quietly._ " Maybe Speke could've eased back on the emphasis, but then again, the U.N. hotshot needed to can it on the moaning and groaning.

At least he shut up after that. _Good boy._

For a time, everyone continued to squeak along to the airstrip, silent in the steady drum of rain. Speke, convinced that he and his men were (more or less) safe for the moment, allowed his thoughts to drift.

His thoughts first drifted to Jenny, his ex-wife now living in Topeka – well, hopefully still living in Topeka. It had been a long time since he'd last talked to her, and a much longer time since he'd last seen her. She probably hadn't changed that much though – maybe grew her hair out some more, gotten a bit curvier, perfected those bedroom eyes that Speke couldn't get enough of when they were married…

Lord Jesus, did he miss Jenny. She probably didn't miss him that much since they got divorced, but he sure did. Speke could picture her right now, practically swimming in one of his olive drab t-shirts, sitting cross-legged on their bed with a wink in those baby blue eyes and a smile on her face, her long blonde hair spilling down her back and over her shoulders like liquid gold – a modern-day pin-up girl, _his_ modern-day pin-up girl. _God,_ she was beautiful. It was a damn shame things didn't work out between them – or, rather, a damn shame Jenny got bored with Speke and decided to move on to someone more interesting.

Speke shook his head. Damn shame, indeed. He briefly wondered if she knew he still had her picture, folded up inside an inner jacket pocket, pressed close to where his heart was. Probably not. Jenny might not have kept her ex-husband close to _her_ heart, but he sure as hell had.

His thoughts soon drifted to Gerry Whatshisface, the U.N. hotshot. He hadn't been what Speke had expected – at all. He'd expected some 60-year-old, hard-faced Tom Selleck look-alike with a gravelly voice and a commanding presence; instead he got Gerry, a young, pretty-faced, average guy with Kurt Cobain hair and a gentle voice. It was gentle all the time, even when he was being serious and – trying – to act annoyed and pissed off. The guy must've had kids or something, Speke figured at one point. No one in his position talked like that – like he was talking to kids – unless he had some of his own. He had to. Gerry looked like the family man type. Speke would've been surprised if he wasn't.

Speke glanced back at him; his head was down, his hair was hanging in his face in long, limp strands, and his eyes were focused on Speke's backside. It was a look of pure, invested concentration, the kind that said, "Get me the fuck outta here." _Good,_ Speke thought. _If he stays quiet he'll be gone before the Zekes even notice…_

The road they were on curved to the left, then opened into a wall of barbwire and – at last – the long strip of runway. Speke could see the small garage off to the right, the one where the fuel truck was kept, and started angling his bike towards it. This was it – this was the big time.

"Show time, boys!" he hissed to the men flanking Gerry. "Let's do this!"

And so they executed. Ellis, Speke's second-in-command, rode up ahead of the group, and squeaked to a stop by the barbwire before sticking his arm in it and pushing it to the side. Speke was the first one through, darting around Ellis like a fish around coral, paying little attention to the bodies tangled up in concertina wire.

Once on the other side, Speke flashed a thumbs-up, and Ellis nodded, waved Gerry through…

Then, horror of horrors, tinny ringing trilled from Gerry's coat pocket before he'd even moved an inch. The hair on the back of Speke's neck stood up shock-straight. No – no, this couldn't really be happening. A fucking _cell phone_?

Chaos erupted almost immediately. The limp bodies caught in the barbwire suddenly snapped to life, shrieking and howling like banshees, and those lying on the ground convulsed and lunged out, strained for the uninfected soldiers. Speke, with his stomach in his throat, spun his bike around and all but flew to the garage.

"Looks like we just woke the dead," Ellis murmured over the comms before chuckling nervously. "Outta respect for others, please silence all pagers and cell phones." The words made Speke grit his teeth.

 _That stupid fuck_ , he thought. _That stupid, stupid fuck._ Leave it to that asshole to leave his fucking phone on, to let every Zeke within ten feet of them know that they were there. Leave it to him to get them all killed if they didn't act fast.

Speke knew he should've done something about that phone before they all headed out. He knew he should've grabbed it and stuffed it in his pack the second Gerry pulled it out and tried to call his wife. Did he really expect to get out of here alive without her calling him to find out what he was doing? Surely he couldn't have been _that_ stupid.

Then again, things wouldn't be so tricky if he wasn't. Fuck – Gerry was going to have serious hell to pay when Speke got a hold of him… _if_ he even got a hold of him.

Once he reached the garage, Speke threw his bike to the ground, climbed into the truck, and started it up. The second the engine started, he peeled out onto the runway, whooping and hollering as Zekes spattered all over the front like bugs on a windshield. If Speke was going to die tonight, he was at least going to leave his mark before he did.

He pulled up beside Gerry, Ellis, and Gerry's pilot. "I'm gonna clear a path through Zeke!" he yelled, though it was directed more towards Ellis than the other two. "You pedal like hell!"

Then, Speke was gone, back to mowing down Zekes and cheering like the cowboy heroes of his childhood. The anger he felt towards Gerry was still present in his mind, but for the moment it had been pushed to the back, temporarily replaced with unstable and malicious glee. _Was_ it temporary? Maybe, maybe not – Speke had no idea. It wasn't like he really cared, either. If his head snapped, oh well. At least he'd be a better killer.

Zekes were closing in on the plane by the time Speke screeched up beside it – seven or eight, from the looks of it. As he jumped out with nothing but a pistol in his hands, he looked around briefly, trying to gauge the distance between him and them; they were maybe forty or fifty meters out, ten seconds away from him. Speke spun around, grabbed the fuel nozzle, and ran it over to the plane. Ten seconds was more than enough time. Five seconds _at most_ was fine.

One second passed. The fuel line was now attached, Speke's gun was locked and loaded, and Ellis was flying up the runway with Gerry and the pilot close behind. _Nearly there buddy, nearly there…_

Two seconds passed. Speke checked on the fuel, gauged distances again. Forty meters had reduced to thirty meters, and thirty had reduced to twenty-five. The Zekes were closing in, and they were closing in _fast._ He raised his gun, poised his finger in front of the trigger, scanned the darkness behind the three on bikes for signs of movement. _Be ready for shit to go down_ , the voice in the back of his head told him. _Be ready for it to go down HARD._

Three seconds passed. Ellis made it to the plane first, and the pilot came in a second later. Zekes were coming at them at a dead sprint now, screaming and hissing like animals over the gunfire. Both Ellis and the pilot had dumped their bikes and were now shooting, Gerry was still pedaling, and Speke was still scanning, willing the asshole to move faster, and praying to God that shrieking, rabid zombie death wasn't standing right behind him.

Four seconds passed. Something screamed, and suddenly Gerry was thrown off his bike by a stray Zeke launching out at him from the darkness. Speke's eyes went wide.

Five seconds passed. His crooked index finger twitched once, twice, nailed what was once human above its left eye and in its forehead, _whap-whap_. He didn't notice the small pack of Zekes creeping up behind him – not until he turned around at the last second and saw four crawling over the fuel truck and one clambering towards him on all fours. Realizing he was cornered and about to meet his maker, Speke stood tall and tensed, ready for the crush of decayed teeth, the bite of swift, certain death…

But it never came. They were there one second - and gone the next.

For a moment, all Speke could do was look around in confusion. Those Zekes had run by him like he wasn't even there. Maybe they hadn't noticed him; after all, it was pretty dark out, save for the few still-functioning lights illuminating the runway. Then again, how hard could it be to miss someone decked out in kevlar yelling his head off and shooting things?

Those things _had_ to know that he was there. So, Speke raised his pistol, took aim at the bear-crawling Zeke, fired twice at its backside. Surely _that_ would get the bastard's attention.

It did. It screeched, howled, roared, even turned around and made direct eye contact - but it didn't go after him. It only snarled at Speke before turning around again and going after one of the Navy SEALS by the plane.

Speke could hardly believe it. He'd been passed over by fucking _Zekes._ How, though? He was as healthy as they came, and unlike Ellis, Speke wasn't crippled in one leg... He was a perfect fucking target for these things.

So why _weren't_ they going after him?

Before he could further contemplate the issue, Ellis belted out his name over the spray of his rifle. "DON'T STAND THERE, YOU JACKASS, GET ON THE FUCKING PLANE!" he yelled. "GO!"

"WHAT ABOUT YOU?!"

"I'M RIGHT BEHIND YOU, CAP! NOW _GO!"_

Then, Ellis went right back to shooting, leaving no room for his commanding officer to protest or ask questions. Speke, meanwhile, did as he was told and made a run for the plane, taking down a couple of Zekes in the process, his head still turning puzzled somersaults at what had happened. A moment later, Ellis came scrambling up the cargo ramp, a horde of Zekes not that far behind him.

"Get this fucking thing airborne!" he yelled, voice scratchy and laced with panic. "We need to go!"

"We can't, not until we detach that fuel line!"

 _Shit. Shit, shit, shit, fucking shit._ Speke had forgotten about the fuel line. He grabbed his pistol, was about to run down the ramp and back out into the chaos -

"No! You stay with them! I got this!" Ellis shot one last look to Gerry and the pilot standing behind Speke. "Israel better pay off!"

Then, he took off down the ramp, and disappeared into the blackness.

Speke would've stayed put and waited for his second-in-command to come back - had counted on it, even. The sudden wave of undead rushing at the plane, and Gerry grabbing him by his kevlar and dragging him into the cockpit? That he hadn't counted on.

"No! We're not leaving without Ellis!"

"Captain," the pilot protested, "we can't wait any longer! Those things are coming at us-"

"We're not leaving him here-"

"We are out of time-!"

"FUCK YOU! I SAID WE'RE NOT LEAVING HIM HERE!"

"We don't have a choice!" Gerry snapped at him. "We're out of time! We need to go _now!_ "

Speke was having none of it. Vainly, he threw himself at the cockpit door, pushed and shoved at it, even after figuring out that it was locked. He couldn't leave Ellis behind, he just couldn't. He'd lost too many men; he couldn't afford to lose another one.

 _C'mon you asshole move it move it move it -_

 _"Fuel line's detached! Now get outta here!"_

Speke frantically jabbed at the button on his headset, frantically tried to tell him to get on board - only to have Ellis tell him no. " _I'm staying here!"_ he said. " _These guys are_ _gonna need you! Good luck in Israel, brother. Now get the fuck outta here!"_

When the comms fizzled out, it was all Speke could do not to lose his shit. With one hand clasped over his mouth and the other curled into a tight fist, he slid to his knees, fist pounding the door on the way down. "Go!" he scratched out in a hoarse voice. "Go, just fucking go! Mother _FUCK_!"

The other two wasted no time. Their timing, it seemed, couldn't have been more perfect. Zekes were clawing, flinging themselves at the door by the time the plane started rolling down the tarmac, peering through the glass, practically foaming at the mouth, the sight - or sense, or who-the-fuck-knows-what - of uninfected humans working them into a frenzy. When they finally did get off the ground, their steep takeoff angle saw to jettisoning them out the rear, and they tumbled out into the nothingness below them, screaming and thrashing the whole way down. With any luck, those things would hit solid ground at some point - die a quick, permanent death, something a hell of a lot more fitting than the first death.

A death those soldiers hadn't deserved to die.

Speke, now sitting with his back to the door, hardly knew what to do with himself. Adrenaline was still pounding through his veins, and his emotions were all over the place, a swirl of numbness, disbelief, and fury - raw, potent, overwhelming fury. Those men and women - HIS men and women - hadn't deserved to die, not like that. They'd busted their asses and sacrificed a lot for him - hell, they'd sacrificed a lot for the asshat sitting in front of him.

Speaking of asshats... Speke noticed Gerry watching him, staring at him with... with _pity_ in his eyes. Speke's jaw clenched. He had some real fucking nerve, making eye contact with him after what just went down...

"Captain, I'm sorry-"

Speke wanted to take a swing at Gerry as soon as the words rolled off his lips, and he would've, too, were it not for the pilot making a grab at his arms and holding him back just as he lunged for him. "You're sorry? _You're SORRY?!_ " he seethed, his whole body vibrating with rage. "You realize how many of my guys died because of you?! DO YOU?!" Speke wrenched his arms free from the pilot's hold, took his previous seat on the floor, eyes spitting flames at Gerry the entire time. "Fuck your apology, Lane, and _fuck you!_ "

Gerry, wisely, decided to avoid all conversation with Speke for the rest of the flight after that. And Speke... Speke stared out the window at the sky, practically glowing with stars. He sighed heavily. He never thought he'd see so much death, so much chaos, in such a short span of time. He never thought he'd see anything like this, period. What was happening to the world? What was happening to them?

He sighed again. _What a fuckin' nightmare,_ he thought. _What a complete fuckin' nightmare._


End file.
